


The Two Haircuts of Lilo Pelekai

by Interrobam



Category: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Genre: "Ze" Pronoun Use, Bigender Character, Canon Character of Color, Community: disney_kink, F/F, Genderqueer Character, Identity Issues, Other, Pansexual Character, Queer Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobam/pseuds/Interrobam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lilo had already wasted close to a gallon of gas driving halfway to, then halfway back from, the Barber's Shop six times when ze pulled off by the side of the road and admitted that this argument ze was having with herself, that she was having with zirself, was way more than indecisiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Two Haircuts of Lilo Pelekai

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Characters experience homophobic, panphobic harassment. One character experiences gender dysphoria.
> 
> Written for the Disney Animated Kink Meme. I need to put less of myself in my stories.

Lilo had already wasted close to a gallon of gas driving halfway to, then halfway back from, the Barber's Shop six times when ze pulled off by the side of the road, banged zes head on the wheel, and admitted that what was going on in zes head was way more than indecisiveness. Stitch, always courteous to his companion's moods, reached over from the passenger’s seat to pet zir on the head. Lilo sighed, looking up first at the road, then at zes friend. Ze couldn't say this conflict with herself had started that morning, but that was definitely when it had begun to boil over. Ze had woken up, rolled out of bed, and looked into the mirror. 

“Ugh. I look like a girl.” Ze had muttered, twisting a lock of zes waist-length hair in zes fingers. Ze had pulled on zes sandals, zes tightest sports bra, some baggy shorts, and a pink pegasus t-shirt before grabbing zes satchel and getting into the Beetle. Ze knew the path to zes destination well, having given it many furtive glances between completing other chores for the past few months. Halfway there, ze had glanced briefly at a road sign, contemplating fauxhawks. All of the sudden, like a bolt from the blue, she had hated the idea of cutting her hair. Absolutely hated it. She had turned the car around, amused at her own fickle impulses, and thought vaguely that what she should really do with her hair today was comb it out and have Mertle put it into those french braids she was so fond of. She had contemplated the heat: her mumu would have been a more comfortable choice today. While waiting at a light, the breeze had come through her window and a lock of hair had drifted into her vision. That fucking hair. Ze had put her blinker on, ignoring Stitch's annoyed snort at all of this running around, and waited for the light. And so it had gone six times over.

It was the part of Lilo that wanted to get a haircut, the part that thought of zirself as “zirself” and felt uncomfortable in restaurants without unisex bathrooms, that surrendered first. After pulling off the road and sulking for a while, ze finally decided to do something about this. The first thing to do was to drive all the way home. She arrived soon enough: confused, worried, and pissed off about her car's mileage. Slamming the Beetle's door, she waited for Stitch to find a secure hold on her shoulder before walking up the stairs to the apartment she and Mertle shared. The redhead was sitting on the couch, reading a baking magazine. Lilo dropped Stitch and her satchel on the dinner table and made her way towards the bedroom, nodding to her girlfriend as she walked. 

“Hey Mertle?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't freak out, but I'm not totally sure I'm a girl.” Mertle did not so much as look up from her magazine, instead heaving her shoulders in a shrug.

“Eh, I'm pansexual anyway. It shouldn't be a problem.” Lilo smiled as she closed the door to their bedroom and started to strip down. Mertle had come a long way in accepting Lilo's eccentricities since they had signed The Truce. The Truce, which they had written some time in middle school on a pink paper napkin, was composed of a simple contract followed by their signatures. Mertle would not call her Weirdlo, Lilo would not bite her. Mertle would not make fun of her traditions, Lilo would not get her involved in any alien weirdness. They still had it, buried somewhere under the bed. Lilo pulled the top of her swimsuit over her head, hesitating when she reached for a bottom. She decided on the swim trunks, decorated with sharks in leis, in case she became zirself. This was the kind of planning ahead she would be certain to do in the future, she thought. She walked back into the living room to see Stitch licking at a page in Mertle's magazine.

“He's picking out the ones he wants me to make.” Her girlfriend explained, rolling her eyes in distaste.

“Good cookie.” Stitch grunted. “Glossy.” Lilo giggled, smiling wide.

“Well, I'm going swimming near the Bubbles'.” She called, shouldering her bag “Make some matte cookies for me, glossy ones give me gas.”

“Lilo?”

“Yeees?” She whined, turning back from the door.

“Come here.” The redhead got up from the couch, walking around it to kiss her. “Tell me all about this gender junk when you're ready, okay?” Lilo smiled against her girlfriend's lips.

“Okay.”

As Lilo walked down the dirt path towards the beach, briefly glad to have chosen the sharks, ze allowed zirself to be relieved at Mertle's reaction. They had been dating for one and a half years now, their relationship having begun senior year of highschool. The week before their first date, Mertle had asked Elena out to the movies, and her “friend” had responded by going on facebook and calling her a “creepy lesbo”. When the redhead had come into school that Monday, nursing a wicked stomachache from eating an entire tub of self pity sorbet the previous night on top of being vulnerable and heartsick from rejection, she had found Lilo scrubbing at her locker door with a wet wipe.

“What are you doing to my locker?” They had signed The Truce years ago, but Mertle had never stopped thinking of Lilo as a weirdo, and her eyes had been narrowed in suspicion behind her glasses. Ze had started, scrubbing all the harder and mumbling something about a stain. “Get off of my locker, Lilo!” Mertle had yelled, grabbing zes wrist and examining the damage. She had tensed, seeing what all of Lilo's work had been unable to erase, the word “DYKE” in thick black letters.

“Mertle...” Lilo had started, unsure of zirself “I'm so sorry.”

“Who did this?” Her voice had been cold, cracked.

“I don't know. I walked in a few minutes ago and it was there.” Lilo had glanced awkwardly at zes former nemesis, spotting tears in the girl's eyes.

“For Pete's sake, I just wanted to... she could have just said no, it was just the movies...” she had muttered, flushed red with humiliation.

“We can report this to the principal. Remember when she gave those guys detention for calling me Lilo's Really-gay? I know she won't stand for you being harassed because you're a lesbian.”

“For Pete's- no, for fuck's sake!” Mertle had yelled, not caring who was in the hall, who turned to stare “I'm not even gay! I'm pan-fucking-sexual!” There had been dead silence, followed by a snicker from behind Lilo.

“Ew Mertle, that's not what your mom meant when she told you to “do” the dishes!” The redhead had just opened her mouth to yell at the boy when Lilo spun around and bit him, hard, on the nose. Ze hadn't let go until the school security guards tore zir off of him. After the dust had settled three students were handed down suspensions: the girl who had written on Mertle's locker, the snickering boy, and Lilo. Mertle had thanked her defender by baking zir cupcakes and bringing zir zes homework. After the week long suspension and grounding was over, Mertle had shyly invited her former friend to see the movie she had meant to attend with Elena. Lilo had said yes.

Ze realized, once zes sandals were off and zes toes were in the sand, that every part of zir loved Mertle just the same. Even if the redhead was kind of an ass sometimes. She had watched horror movies with her, ze had gone to nice restaurants with her, all aspects of Lilo had and did love Mertle. If it wasn't so, Lilo thought as ze approached the shoreline, ze probably would have noticed already, and this knowledge was a strange comfort to zir. Nothing had to change, at least not dramatically, in this new light. Ze dove in, the water was pleasantly cool on zes face. Some people came up with their best ideas in the shower, Lilo liked to think while swimming. 

For a while swimming was all ze did. Skimming over the coral, chasing after tiny metallic fish, enjoying the pressure of water against skin, of sand in between toes, of lessened gravity. Ze practiced holding zes breath, the breaststroke, the backstroke, riding the waves. Ze squinted through filtered sunlight at cartoon sharks in leis and swiftly pruning fingers. Ze laughed in lumpy, pearlescent bubbles. Eventually, mind clear of distraction, Lilo thought back to when ze, she, was a child. No memory surfaced of dysphoria, but that was before zes body had changed. Really, it had begun to emerge in highschool, this dual gender. Ze was all one person, that ze was sure of, but there was a part of Lilo that was a woman, and another part that was not wholly male or female. Ze dove deep into the clear blue waves, holding zir breath deep. Androgyne, ze would call zirself, remembering long and confusing nights on the computer, trying to riddle out a singular gender. But why, ze wondered as a bright school of fish passed, limit oneself to one gender? Even when Lilo was young, and gender meant nothing, ze, she, was nonconforming. She had never been a normal girl, with her voodoo spoons and swollen headed dolls. Ze had never been a normal child, with zes photographs of tourists and blue koala of a dog. Why care to have an ordinary, singular gender? Ze, she, Lilo, emerged with a sharp laugh from the water. 

Relief flowed through Lilo's body as ze leaned back so that her hair spread like a halo in the water. It was satisfying to finally admit this, to look back and realize how much sense it made. How some situations, some people, called for zir, and others for her. How ze could feel one minute awkward and hateful of zes chest, wanting for a binder, and the next utterly at peace with her body, wanting for a new mumu. Now ze could buy zes binder, she could buy her mumu, and be secure in the knowledge that each would have their own time of necessity. It was good to be free from the worry and guilt that the genderqueer person ze was was only a frequent fantasy in her otherwise cisgender life. Lilo twisted back, head under the water once more, grinning at the gaping fish.

Once out of the water Lilo set off, on foot, for the Barber's Shop, allowing her hair to drip down her back, zes shorts to blow in the wind. Eventually, it was settled that the barber would cut Lilo's hair into a bob. She liked how it framed her face, how it ticked her cheeks, how it hung with just enough measure to be styled. Ze liked how it looked slicked back or in a fauxhawk, and ze bought a tub of hair gel on zes way out of the Barber's Shop.

Lilo walked down the sidewalk, at peace with the twilight and all genders, pausing only to admire both haircuts in the reflection of a store window.

**Author's Note:**

> The AO3 tags use the "Myrtle" spelling, but every other source I've seen uses "Mertle", so that's the form I chose to use for this fic. I still added the "Myrtle" tag to make it easier to find.
> 
> The specific form of "Ze" used is ze (object), zir (subject), zes (possessives), zirself (reflexive).


End file.
